


The Misadventures of Red and the Wolf Man

by MizEmily



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Bounty Hunters, Enemies to Friends, M/M, Mild Gore, Pre-Slash, Stiles is a Little Shit, Violence, Wolf Derek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-24
Updated: 2014-09-24
Packaged: 2018-02-18 14:17:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2351420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MizEmily/pseuds/MizEmily
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Derek smells him before he even enters the clearing. Not the ogre he’s been tracking the last two days. He’s pretty sure that stench has tattooed itself onto the inside of his nasal cavities. No, what he smells is the kid who’s been dogging his heels for months. The one that things-that-go-bump-in-the-night call ‘the boy in the red cloak’. Derek calls him a thorn in his side. A pretty little pain in the ass.</p><p>He’s a damn bounty poacher, and if he refers to Derek as ‘wolf man’ one more time, Derek is going to rip his throat out with his teeth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Misadventures of Red and the Wolf Man

**Author's Note:**

> Written for an anon prompt on tumblr: If you're still taking requests? Badass red riding hood stiles (like guns in thigh holsters and maybe a cross bow?) and big bad werewolf derek? It doesn't have to be smut but maybe some heavy sexual tension and kissing?
> 
> So I know this is probably not at all what you were imagining when you prompted me, but my brain grabbed this idea and ran with it. Honestly, it’s a miracle that I finished anything at all, what with this hellacious writer’s block I’ve got going, so THANK YOU FOR THE PROMPT! And thanks as always to [i_feel_electric](http://archiveofourown.org/users/i_feel_electric/) for beta reading for me <3 I hope you like it, anon!
> 
> Come say hi to/prompt me on tumblr @moregeous-tbh!
> 
> \--------

Derek smells him before he even enters the clearing. Not the ogre he's been tracking the last two days. He's pretty sure that stench has tattooed itself onto the inside of his nasal cavities. No, what he smells is the kid who’s been dogging his heels for months. The one that things-that-go-bump-in-the-night call 'the boy in the red cloak'. Derek calls him a thorn in his side. A pretty little pain in the ass.

  
He's a damn bounty poacher, and if he refers to Derek as 'wolf man' one more time, Derek is going to rip his throat out with his teeth.

  
“Yeah, you like that, ugly?”

  
The boy's voice is high and reedy. Derek can't tell if the strain is caused by stress or elation. He crests the hill to find the kid perched on top of the ogre's shoulders, one hand tangled in the flailing creature’s matted hair, the other driving a blade into its hulking mass over and over. He may hate the end results of losing bounties to Red (missed meals, smug looks from other bounty hunters, a twinge in his pride), but Derek has to admit the kid’s got style. He also has a huge flair for the dramatic.

  
“Think you can just eat innocent campers and no one’ll do anything about it, huh?”

  
Red dismounts from the ogre with a perfectly executed backflip, yanks his gun from the holster on his thigh, and fires off a round into the ogre’s kneecap. The monster goes down, hard. Red holsters his weapon again and practically saunters over to the thing, twirling his knife lazily in blood-coated fingers. Derek doesn’t even try to stop his eyes from rolling around in his skull like it’s their job.

  
And that’s when he remembers what he’s here to do. His job. Which is not standing around, watching kids in red hoodies steal his bounties.

  
He closes his eyes and tunes out everything around him, just for a second, and feels the shift take him. Derek has to awkwardly wriggle out of his now-superfluous clothing—seriously, he’s going to have to find a more efficient way to do this—before he lopes off  down the hill on all fours toward his meal ticket and the boy that’s about to nab it for himself.

  
Red’s hand is in the air, blade tilted at just the right angle to sever major arteries, when Derek goes flying past him. And he rips out the ogre’s throat. With his teeth. It is supremely satisfying.

  
He hears the kid’s indignant squawk, listens to him splutter as arterial spray hits him in the face. If he didn’t have a mouthful of foul-tasting flesh in his jaws, he’d turn around and grin at the boy. He knows how frightening he looks when he smiles in his wolf form. It’s almost as scary as when he smiles in his human form, or so he’s heard.

  
“Dude!” Red whines, holstering his knife before wiping at the red mess on his face. “That was my kill!”

  
Derek shifts back into his human skin, unabashed at his nakedness, and spits the ogre’s torn throat out onto the forest floor. “Doesn’t look like it,” he answers, smirking at the kid despite his overwhelming desire to gag at the horrid taste in his mouth. He’ll have to remember to save his dramatic throat-ripping for the more sweet-smelling creatures he hunts. Like fairies, and selkies, and—

  
“Whatever, wolf man.”

  
—and stupid kids who call him names.

  
A growl rips itself from his throat before he has a chance to stop it. Not that he’d want to. This brat was going to steal his kill. Derek hasn’t eaten since yesterday, and he’s only got enough gas to make it to his client’s place. If he doesn’t claim this bounty, he’s going to have to live in full-shift until he can take on another job. As proud as he is of his heritage and abilities, he doesn’t relish the thought of traipsing around America as a wolf during hunting season.

  
He tackles Red to the ground, surprising both of them. Derek's never seen anyone or anything get the jump on this kid, so the fact that he managed to lay hands on him throws Derek off just long enough for Red to wrap his long legs around Derek's hips and roll them so that Derek's the one with his throat bared. At any other time, Derek could get on board with what’s happening. Suddenly there's a very sharp blade digging into the thin skin over his carotid artery.

  
“Listen up, _wolf man_ ,” the boy hisses, teeth clenched in anger. “I was here first, _I_ did all of the work. You don’t get to show up late to the party and poach _my_ kills.”

  
Derek can’t help it. He laughs. He laughs right into the kid’s blood-splattered face, because that is _ironic_. Red’s eyes widen in surprise, his head jerks back minutely, and Derek takes advantage of the situation and rolls them again. The kid’s strong, but Derek is an Alpha werewolf, and it’s easy as breathing to pin Red’s wrists to the ground, his knife sent skittering into the leaves around them.

  
“It’s too bad there’s no bounty on _you_ ,” he sighs, lips curling upward at the way Red attempts to gain leverage underneath him. “I sure am hungry.”

  
It’s obvious Red’s taken his words the wrong way, because the boy goes still, and the emotion flickering in his big brown eyes wavers between rage and fear. His heart trips a beat, and when it resumes it’s pounding twice as hard and fast. Then he starts struggling in earnest, teeth bared and eyes wild, the stench of his terror cloying in Derek’s nose. Honestly, it freaks Derek out, just a little.

  
Derek lets him up after he removes his thigh holster, and crouches low over the discarded knife once the boy’s on his feet again.

  
“I need this bounty,” Derek tells him calmly, hands held palm up in pacification. Red’s unpredictable at the best of times, and Derek may have claws and fangs, but he’s still naked and has no idea what kind of weaponry could be lying underneath the boy’s clothes.

  
“Fuck you, _I_ was here first, and I need it more!”

  
“You were only here first because you’ve been following me like a puppy for god knows how long, and I haven’t eaten in two days. You’ve poached every bounty from me this month.”

  
“Maybe if you were a better hunter—”

  
“Maybe if you weren’t a fucking vulture we wouldn’t be here having a pissing contest!” Derek snaps, patience wearing thin.

 

Red’s eyes harden, and his hand twitches toward one of the pockets on his cargo pants. “I’m not gonna argue with you, wolfy,” he snarls. “My father’s in a hospital on the other side of this shithole town, and this money’s keeping him alive. You want the bounty, you’re gonna have to go through me. So either come at me or get the hell out of my way.”

  
Derek deflates, anger seeping out of him so fast it leaves him feeling cold. “Where’s your mother?” he asks.

  
Red narrows his eyes. If looks could kill Derek would be on fire right now. “Dead.”

  
“Do you have any brothers? Sisters?”

  
“It’s just me and Dad. Do you want my tragic back story, or are you going to scamper along?”

  
Red’s heartbeat doesn’t change at any point during the conversation. For whatever reason, he’s telling Derek the truth. And Derek just can’t. As hungry and broke as he is, Derek can’t tell him to man up, can’t take this money and possibly the boy’s father from him. Red may be tough, and a smartass, but he’s still alone in the world, and Derek has been in the same boat too long to be that cruel.

  
“Fine, take it,” he grumbles, tossing the holster at the kid and hoping, belatedly, that the safety is engaged on the gun. He picks the knife up by the blade and holds it out to Red, as well. It’s sharp, but Derek will heal pretty quickly even if Red decides to take a swipe at him. But he doesn’t. Red collects his things without a word, keeping wary eyes trained on Derek. Neither of them speaks until Red’s got his holster strapped back onto his thigh.

  
Derek opens his mouth to tell the kid he’s leaving, and not to follow him anymore, when his stomach lets out a series of high-pitched gurgles that echo in the small clearing. The look Red gives him makes him want to shift and run away with his tail between his legs. Instead, he lifts his chin defiantly, aware that he looks ridiculous seeing as he’s still naked.

  
“Guess you weren’t lying about not eating, huh?” Red observes. His lower lip is between his teeth, and he’s gnawing away as if it might contain a candy center. Derek just quirks an eyebrow at him. The boy nods decisively. “Okay. We’ll split it.”

  
Derek blinks.

  
“We’ll…?”

  
“Split it. The bounty. Duh. I’m not a total asshole, you know.”

  
Derek lowers his eyebrow just so he can raise it again. That startles a laugh out of Red.

  
“Hey, you’re not exactly the Big Bad Wolf, either. Even if that’s what the other supes call you.”

  
“My name’s Derek. They call you ‘the boy in the red cloak’.”

  
One corner of Red’s lips lifts in a half-assed, tired smile. “Stiles. I’m Stiles.”

  
“Stiles?” Derek asks. “That’s not even a real name. I think I’ll keep calling you Red.”

  
Red— _Stiles_ —kicks leaves at him, and Derek’s stomach makes that awful squealing noise again.

  
“Go put on some clothes while I…” Stiles makes a slicing motion across his neck and thumbs over his shoulder at the partially decapitated ogre. Derek hadn’t noticed before, as he was a little preoccupied with not having his throat slit, but there’s a faint blush on the blood-flecked skin of Stiles’ cheeks. And that’s. Huh.

  
A train of thought for another time, when he’s not naked and hungry and covered in ogre blood.

  
When he re-enters the clearing, once again clothed, Stiles has just finished sawing through the ogre’s thick flesh. He holds up his knife, which Derek notes is serrated on one side, and grins. “I know you’ve got claws, man, but this thing is super handy. You should think about getting one.”

  
“Maybe I will. I’ll use the money from the next bounty I take. Alone,” he stresses, shoving his hands into the lined pockets of his leather jacket.

  
“I had an idea while I was cutting off this thing’s head,” Stiles says, as if Derek hadn’t spoken. “We could take on way bigger bounties. If we went in together.”

  
Derek doesn’t even know what to say, has never had a partner in all his years of bounty hunting and isn’t sure he wants to start now, so he stares at Stiles while he loads the ogre’s head into a plastic bag he’d apparently stored in his holster. Derek may have to purchase one of those for the storage capabilities alone.

  
“Just think about it, okay?”

  
Derek finds himself nodding, and then shaking his head as the kid starts to walk away.

  
“Whoa, wait,” he barks. If Stiles thinks he going to renege on his offer of halving the bounty, he’s got another thing coming. “Where are you going?”

  
Stiles frowns at him in confusion. “The client lives on the other side of the preserve.”

  
“And what’d you do, walk here?”

  
At the boy’s shrug, Derek balks. “I thought you had a car. That ugly blue Jeep, right?”

  
Stiles purses his lips. “Had to sell it,” he says, voice measured. “Hospital bills, remember? Thanks for bringing it up.”

  
Before Derek can give himself the opportunity to be an asshole again, he rounds on the boy and points behind him. “I have a car. We can-you can ride with me. I’ve got enough gas to make it. I think.”

  
“Holy shit, you are in dire straights, aren’t you? Man, why’d you let me claim all those bounties? I mean, I know I’m good, but you can out-track and outrun me, and I’m pretty sure you could kill me even when you’re naked, so…”

  
Derek will never in a million years admit to the truth of it: that he was too busy watching Stiles to make his kills. That he’s fascinated by the way his body moves, how capable he is, even though he’s human. Maybe _because_ he’s human. He’ll never tell him that the way his eyes light up when he’s cutting something to ribbons with that knife he loves so much turns him on. Not ever.

  
“I guess you’re just… better.”

  
The look on Stiles’ face says he doesn’t believe a word coming out of his mouth, but Derek’s alright with that. Anger, hurt, confusion: these are the emotions he knows, the ones he can deal with. It’s the more gentle things that give him trouble. He’s willing to bet it’s the same for Stiles.

  
When they finally reach his car, Derek has to take the bag with the ogre’s head in it, because Stiles cannot stop laughing.

  
“The Big Bad Wolf has a _mom_ _car_?!” he shrieks in glee, voice cracking on the last word. Derek glares at him ineffectually.

  
“It’s practical,” he mutters, unlocking the doors with the remote attached to his keyring.

  
“What happened to the other one?”

  
Derek doesn’t want to talk about the Camaro, the last thing of Laura’s he’d had to leave behind, and Stiles seems to understand, because he just ducks his head at Derek’s silence. It’s only once Derek’s pulled out of the preserve and onto the road that circles back around to civilization that Stiles pipes up again.

 

“You know, if we’re going to be partners, we’re gonna have to talk. About stuff. Personal stuff. So we don’t end up killing each other.”

  
Derek spares him a glance before focusing on the road once more. The kid’s still covered in blood. So is he. And he doesn’t want to talk. He leans over and pops the console in front of Stiles, takes out a pack of wet wipes, and tosses them into Stiles’ lap.

  
“You have diaper wipes in your mom car.”

  
“I have supplies to clean blood off of me so no one calls the cops thinking I’ve committed murder.”

  
Stiles’ eyebrows do something complicated, but he opens the package and wipes away the crusted gore from his face and hands. Then he hands one to Derek, and Derek does the same. Stiles waits until Derek’s done scrubbing viscera from his beard, and then he opens his mouth again. Derek’s already missing the peace and quiet of solitude.

  
“Look, if you don’t want to try taking on larger bounties with me, that’s your call. But we need to talk about how we’re splitting this one, at least.”

  
The kid is good at what he does. Derek suspects he got that way from his time spent tailing Derek, something he probably should have nipped in the bud when he’d caught Stiles creeping around all those months ago, watching him take down bounties with a look of wonder on his face. But he hadn’t, and now here they are. Two lonely, fucked-up boys who make their livings dealing death. They’re probably going to be very bad for each other.

  
“Derek—”

  
“We can talk,” Derek says, cutting off whatever protestation Stiles was about to make. “Later. After we get our money. And after we eat.”

 

His stomach whines like an angry baby at the mention of food. Derek resolutely does not look at Stiles, who’s trying and failing to hold in his laughter.

 

“So. _Our_ money?” Stiles asks, once he’s gotten a hold of himself. Derek nods. He thinks that’s answer enough to Stiles’ question about partnering up, for now.

  
A quick peek out of the corner of his eye shows him Stiles’ grinning face, turned to watch the scenery pass by. Maybe they won’t be so bad for each other, after all.

 


End file.
